UPDATE (August 14, 2025): Reports say that Trooper Dennis Ricks has died from his injuries resulting from the crash. Potential additional charges for the truck driver are pending at this time.

Orangeburg County, SC — August 10, 2025, Trooper Dennis Ricks was injured as the result of a box truck accident at around 2:00 a.m. on I-26.

Initial details about the accident suggest it happened in the area of Vance Road, near the I-95 interchange south of Columbia.

According to DPS officials, South Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper Dennis Ricks was along the side of I-26 conducting a traffic stop. While Trooper Ricks returned to his patrol vehicle, it's said that a box truck then struck Trooper Ricks.

Due to the collision, Trooper Dennis Ricks is currently in critical condition. The truck driver was arrested for driving on a suspended license. Right now, additional details are unavailable pending investigations.

Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman

There are certainly a lot of questions here, and one that I hope authorities are asking is whether or not this truck driver was working for someone when this accident happened. Authorities allege that the driver was driving while suspended, but I've encountered plenty of companies who would simply overlook that just to get someone behind the wheel.

Here's why that matters. People have a tendency to just put all of their focus on a single "bad guy". But the hundreds of families I've helped following commercial vehicle accidents didn't want that. They wanted accountability. Maybe evidence here will show that is just a single driver having their day in court. However, it's important to know if there was another complicit party who could have prevented this yet failed to do so. Otherwise, they might slip under the radar and just continue putting lives at risk.